


And I remember (Baby, come home)

by definitelythor (yourlionheartx)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cuddles, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 14:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3939484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlionheartx/pseuds/definitelythor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's learning what it is to be human again with help from Steve & Sam, a lot of movies and a punching bag</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I remember (Baby, come home)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Fall Out Boy's 'Jet pack blues' 
> 
> There are spoilers ahead for The Winter soldier and mild spoilers for Age of Ultron. The reason the other Avengers don't appear is a) I don't think I can write any of them that well lol and b) this is directly after AOU. Steve's staying at the Avengers head quarters because he doesn't actually have his own place yet, as I think he mentions at some point in AOU, and Sam's staying for moral support and because he goes where Steve goes of course
> 
> I'm pretty certain Steve wouldn't push any romantic feelings onto Bucky this early on in Bucky's recovery, so it's just cuddly cute stuff. I have plenty of feelings about how they would develop their relationship. I might write about them at some point.

It's dark when Bucky opens his eyes. He shivers and for a few seconds thinks he's in the ice, he's frozen and completely conscious, trapped under layers and layers of cold. He sits up and hugs his knees to his chest. The dreams he wakes up from every night are awful. All he can see when he closes his eyes is destruction, people's screaming faces and blood, children crying. It takes a few minutes for him to calm down, counting his breaths like Sam told him to do.

Sam had found him. Sam with the wings and the confident smile. Bucky recognised him but couldn't place him in his memory until Sam held out his hand "I'm friends with Steve, Bucky. I want to help you."

Bucky had been sleeping in alleys, stealing food from dumpsters behind restaurants and trying to piece himself together. For the first few weeks, he spent nearly every day at The Smithsonian learning about 'James Buchanan Barnes'. He wanted to figure out why he was so important to Steve, why he mattered so much, why Steve and Sam had been following him across New York City. 

He was in a cafe in Brooklyn, sheltering from the rain, when he saw Steve on television with the Avengers. Bucky felt relieved that Steve was focusing on something else, although he couldn't understand what it was that the Avengers were fighting this time. Steve was destroying these robots, but had risked his life to save Bucky and that made no sense. What was the difference between those robots and Bucky? Bucky felt like he was more robot than human. He wasn't sure what made someone a human. Love, empathy, pain, maybe. The way Steve had dropped his shield and surrendered because he didn't want to fight his friend. That was humanity. Bucky had nothing of that left in him, he was sure of it. 

Brookyn was meant to be James Barne's home, he knew that from The Smithsonian but he couldn't remember anything about it. The buildings towered over him and lights flashed all day and night, but then there was a movie theatre. Bucky stood outside and watched people leaving arm in arm, in crowds, laughing and talking. Just the smell, something salty, made Bucky think of Steve, a smaller, skinnier Steve, smiling and laughing, colours flickering over his face. 

Those memories were scary though, because every time Bucky thought he remembered something, he realised Steve was right, that Bucky was actually a human and a friend and a Howling Commando, that there's a whole life he's had ripped from him. It would make him angry if he wasn't so exhausted. 

The man with the wings and the smile found Bucky sitting against the wall in an alley, rocking back and forth and trying to stop shaking. 

Sam crouched down next to Bucky after a moment of accessing the situation and realising there was no fight left in him so he had nothing to be afraid of. "Hey, you're panicking. Can you count your breaths? Five in, five out." Sam demonstrated and Bucky tried to copy him.

"Can you remember who you are?" Sam asked softly, once Bucky was breathing a little more normally and the world had stopped spinning. 

"James Buchanan Barnes, born March the 10th 1917 in Brooklyn," Bucky said, repeating the words he memorised from his section of The Smithsonian. 

"That's right."

"Member of the Howling Commandos in - "

"Do you remember though?" Sam asked, cutting Bucky's sentence short. Bucky blinked hard, surprised to find his eyes burning and wet. 

He shook his head. "I remember Steve," he said. 

"Okay, good enough for me. Come on, let's get you somewhere dry and warm. Steve will never forgive me if I finally find you and then let you die of hypothermia."

**

Steve isn't back yet. Steve knows Bucky's at the Avengers head quarters, trying to sleep on a mattress that feels far too soft, waking up every hour or so sweating and shaking. Bucky could distract himself from the bad memories before. He could focus on his mission of staying alive. He didn't have to stop and breathe and think. 

He thinks Steve might be scared to come back, and he doesn't blame him. Steve remembers a friend when he looks at Bucky, and Bucky isn't a friend. Bucky's a weapon. It was obvious that Sam didn't know what to say to him when they drove back in silence and he showed him where the bedroom was, and the bathroom and where he could make food and get a drink. Bucky hadn't made himself anything, even though his stomach was aching it was so empty and he was dizzy with lack of water. He was only ever given food and water as sustenance on missions if it was completely necessary, and he couldn't imagine just helping himself without a direct order or someone forcing him. 

There's a noise downstairs now, hushed voices and someone pacing, and Bucky watches his door. A few minutes later there's a knock. "Bucky? Are you awake?"

He could pretend he's asleep, just ignore Steve and wait until tomorrow when he isn't tired and still a bit shaky. There's a long pause, and then Bucky clears his throat."Yes."

Steve pushes the door open. For a moment he just stands in the doorway, wide eyes fixed on Bucky. Bucky can read fear in his expression, but also relief, somehow. 

"God, Bucky," Steve whispers. "I can't believe it's you."

The nail's of Bucky's right hand dig into his palm and he tries to make himself smaller but he's already curled up on himself as much as possible. 

Steve takes a step forward. "I didn't wake you did I? I would have waited. I had this thing I couldn't miss, there's a lot of fall out from the um - things have been crazy but I didn't think I could sleep knowing you were here without saying hello."

Bucky knows the fall out is from HYDRA and all of the leaked data from S.H.I.E.L.D. He's spent mornings watching the television in run down diners hoping no one will chuck him out for not buying coffee, and he's seen the front of newspapers in vendors on the street. Steve's trying to protect Bucky though, so Bucky just looks down at his knees, his hair falling into his face. 

Steve doesn't say anything for a long time, and then he takes another step forward. "I had some really messed up nightmares when I came out of the ice. I know- it isn't exactly the same obviously, but - um - "

Steve's interrupted by the rumbling growl of Bucky's stomach, and Bucky feels his face go red. For a second he thinks he might feel the back of a hand against his cheek and taste blood in his mouth, but Steve doesn't hit him. Steve wouldn't hit him 

"Buck, when did you last eat?"

Bucky shakes his head, but he knows that isn't an answer to Steve's question. He just can't seem to make his mouth work. The ache he felt in his chest when he dragged Steve out of the river is spreading out and squeezing at his throat. 

"Come on, I can make you something. We have a lot of food. I can find something to throw together, yeah?"

Bucky's a robot, he's a weapon. The asset doesn't need someone to make food for him, that would slow down the mission. "I don't - " 

"Bucky, you've got to eat."

Bucky swallows and pushes his hair back off of his face with metal fingers. "Okay."

Steve gets a lot of food out of the cupboards in the kitchen and keeps asking what Bucky wants, as if Bucky has any opinion on anything. "Toast? Pasta? A sandwich? There's beans somewhere you used to like baked beans."

Bucky doesn't think he's ever liked anything. He feels so overwhelmed he thinks he might start panicking again.

"Bit much really, right? We never had all of this stuff when we were kids." Steve pauses and glances over at Bucky. "Do you remember that?"

Bucky shakes his head, and Steve turns around just after Bucky sees his face fall. "How about toast? You've probably never tried Nutella, and you've really got to try it," Steve says, keeping his voice as light as he can. 

Bucky just nods his head and Steve gives him a small smile and starts making the food for him. 

"If you don't want to sleep, we could watch a movie? Sam got me a DVD the other day, you remember The Wizard of Oz? We saw it at the movies in Brooklyn." 

Bucky wishes Steve would stop asking if he remembers things, because he wants to stop letting him down by just shaking his head every time. He goes to shrug a shoulder, but then Steve starts to hum a tune and Bucky can remember the bright colours flickering over a smaller Steve's face. People laughing at something. A tinman with no heart. 

"I think so," Bucky says quietly. 

Steve smiles wide when he looks at Bucky. "Yeah? That's great. We'll watch it. I have loads of movies that we saw in Brooklyn together."

**

Bucky remembers the film as soon as they start watching it. He remembers singing the songs with Steve late at night when they should have been sleeping. He likes the Tin Man the best. He thinks the Tin Man might have always been his favourite. It takes the whole film for him to finish the two slices of toast that Steve's made for him. By the end they're cold and a little bit chewy, but he still likes the taste. It sits a bit uncomfortably until Steve gets them both glasses of water to wash it down. 

"Bucky?" Steve says softly. 

"Yeah," Bucky replies after waiting for a few moments for his name to sink in and find somewhere in his head to belong. 

"I'm so glad you're here. I missed you so much."

Bucky blinks, looking back at the television. The credits have finished. The DVD goes back to the title menu and starts playing 'The Yellow Brick Road' again. "Why?" Bucky asks. 

Steve smiles. "Because I'm with you - "

"No. Why? Why would you still want to find me after what I've done, after the people I've hurt and killed, after what I am. I don't understand."

Steve's eyes flicker over Bucky. He looks surprised, probably because it's the most Bucky's actually said since he's seen Steve, the most they've spoken in what must be seventy years for Steve. "You're my best friend, Buck. I know it was out of your control. I know you."

"You know who I used to be," Bucky says. "You know James Buchanan Barnes. He's dead, Steve. He died when he fell and I'm not him. I'm a - " He wants to say monster or machine or robot, but he just draws his feet up onto the couch and hugs his knees to his chest again, trying not to rock or shake, trying to keep it together in front of Steve because Steve wants his best friend and not some mess of his best friend's remains. 

"I am never going to blame you for what you did," Steve says. "It's okay if things aren't the same, if you don't feel like Bucky anymore, but I won't let you hate yourself or blame yourself. You don't deserve that. You are my best friend, no matter what."

Bucky sniffs and scowls when he feels that sting in his eyes again. He tries to look at the ceiling, willing the tears to stay where they are but then a painful, heaving breath chokes them out of him. 

He isn't sure when he last let himself cry. He can't even breathe, it feels like everything is coming to the surface. Every memory and every slap to the face, every dead body, every screaming child. Steve doesn't move, and Bucky understands why. He wants to lash out at something right now. If Steve tried to touch him or hug him, Bucky would panic and he would hurt Steve and the thought makes him cry harder. 

"Bucky," Steve says, his voice firm but soft at the same time. He isn't angry, he's trying to get Bucky to calm down. "It's okay, it's really, really okay. You can cry. "

"I don't understand," Bucky repeats. 

"I know you don't. I know."

"I killed so many people." Bucky gasps out. 

"We'll get through this together," Steve says. "You will get through it, Buck."

Bucky doesn't answer. He's tired and drained, but he doesn't think he can ever sleep again because he'll wake up scared and shaking, and with too much in his head. He tries to count his breaths, five in, five out, and he remembers smaller Steve struggling to catch his breath. Bucky had been panicking then, shaking as he tried to get Steve to breathe normally. He thought Steve was going to die. 

His face had been red and his chest heaving, taking a breath was the most painful looking thing Bucky had seen and he had no idea how to help. He felt so useless. "Take slow breaths," he kept repeating, but Steve didn't look like he was capable of that. There were more times like that, Bucky knows but can't remember them so well. 

He tenses when he feels Steve's hand on his shoulder, the touch barely there because Steve is clearly aware of the invisible boundary that Bucky's got built around himself. He waits and Steve begins to slowly circle his thumb over Bucky's collar bone, not saying a word. 

"Are you okay? Do you feel better?" Steve asks after a few more minutes of nothing but Bucky's shaking breaths and gasps. 

It feels like someone has taken the lead weight out of Bucky's brain and thrown it away, but at the same time he feels like he's been punched so hard in the stomach that he's been winded. He isn't sure how to answer Steve's question so he just shrugs his right shoulder and looks up at Steve. Steve runs a hand over his own face, wiping away his own tears and Bucky thinks that might set him off again because it's something else that he just can't get his head around. He thinks he might have upset Steve, he made him cry and that's awful because Steve's to nice to be upset. 

"I'll get you some water." Steve walks out with their empty glasses and Bucky lies down on the couch, curling up into a ball, hoping he can make himself smaller and smaller and disappear. Steve comes back in and Bucky hears him place a glass down on the table in front of the couch. Then he leaves. He comes back after a few minutes and Bucky tries not to tense up when he feels something soft being placed over his body. When Steve's footsteps have left the room, Bucky opens his eyes and pulls the blanket tighter around himself, staring at the glass on the table. 

He doesn't understand how sleep comes so easily to everyone else. Sam has been sleeping through the night, as far as Bucky knows. Bucky's so terrified of closing his eyes and then opening them and being back in the chair, not being able to fight as they take away Steve and the scraps of what Bucky can remember about himself.

Bucky sits up. His eyes sting and his head aches. Crying is exhausting, he decides. It's just not exhausting enough to help him sleep. He pushes the blanket away and gets up, walking over to the stack of DVDs in front of the television. Too many of them look too bright. They used to be just black, white, grey and shades in between, but all the front covers look like they've been coloured in. Bucky remembers one of them. He remembers going out for drinks after seeing it at the movies. Steve leaving the bar early and getting cornered in an alley by two huge guys. 

Bucky had stepped in, had to throw a few punches and he called them cowards for cornering someone half, maybe even a quarter, of their size just for kicks. 

"I have to keep getting you out of shit, Rodgers," Bucky had said with a laugh. There was a bruise covering one of Steve's eyes, puffy and purple. "You tryin' to get yourself killed, punk?" His voice was softer then and Steve managed a small smile despite being in pain. 

"I can't back down, not in my nature." Steve paused and his smile turned into a grin. "Jerk."

"What are you going to do when I get my orders, Stevie? Who's gonna stand up for you then when you pick fights with six foot men?"

Steve was quiet then, and Bucky remembers inwardly cursing himself for bringing it up, for reminding Steve that he probably wasn't getting his orders at any point and Bucky was going to leave him, maybe for a long time. Steve fought to keep the expression on his face passive, which is something he still does now. It's the same face he makes when Bucky says he doesn't remember something.

"You can stick up for yourself, right?" Bucky said softly and Steve smiled again, nodding his head.

"Tougher than I look," Steve said.

"Damn right you are," Bucky agreed. "Toughest guy I know." Bucky had kept watching Steve, wincing when Steve winced in pain after touching the tips of his fingers to his eye and smiling when Steve met his eyes. 

Bucky copies Steve's actions from before, pressing the right buttons to get the DVD to start playing and he sits back on the couch, eyes wide as he remembers popcorn again and Steve's face next to his. 

Two films later, the sun is pouring into the room. Buck hears footsteps and he stands, searching for a weapon, his body tense. 

Sam holds up his hands when he sees Bucky. "Hey. It's just me. The good looking guy who brought you back here, remember?"

Bucky nods. 

"You and Steve not a fan of beds? I just found him asleep in the gym." Sam shakes his head. He doesn't step any closer to Bucky. Bucky waits to be told that he can stand down before he remembers where he is and just collapses back against the couch. 

"I didn't sleep," he says. 

"Not at all?"

"About an hour. I watched - um, The Maltese Falcon. And Angels with Dirty Faces and I used to like that guy - " Bucky picks the case up and points to the actor in both of those films, the guy he used to try and emulate in everyway because he was cool, and Bucky used to care about being cool.

"Humphrey Bogart. My Mum liked him," Sam says. "Hey, there's a lot of films you've got to catch up on with him in. I'll make a list. Steve likes lists, maybe you do too."

"I don't know," Bucky says.

It's then that Steve walks in and Bucky's eyes move straight to the cuts on his knuckles. Steve moves his hands behind his back a little bit too late. If his knuckles aren't already starting to heal and scab over he must have busted them pretty bad. He must have been punching something for a long time. Bucky knows how Steve feels. He knows what it's like to have no way to let out the anger and upset without punching holes in things. 

"Morning," Steve says. He frowns, looking over the DVDs and no doubt taking in the dark circles under Bucky's eyes. 

"Morning," Bucky repeats. 

"You've been up all night," Steve points out and Bucky nods. He's still holding the case for The Maltese Falcon and he hands it to Steve silently. 

"Oh. This is kind of - I mean, there's a lot of murder and stuff in this film, Buck."

Bucky raises his eyebrows."I'm not a kid, Steve."

"No, of course not." Steve smiles and turns the DVD over, glancing at the back. "Good film."

"We saw it in Brooklyn," Buck says. He waits to see if Steve corrects him or tells him he's confused but Steve just smiles and nods, looking like he wants Bucky to continue. "Um - we got popcorn. We went drinking afterwards. You got in a fight. I called you a punk."

"I was tougher than I looked."

The smile that pulls on Bucky's lips still feels unfamiliar to him. "Toughest guy I knew."

**

Watching movies becomes something they do. Whenever Bucky wakes up screaming in the night, when the bad memories out weight the good ones and he hates himself, Steve's there, a scattered pile of old DVDs on the floor for Bucky to choose from. Bucky starts to remember things that happened during or after the movies, and when he does he says them out loud so Steve's face breaks into a smile. 

He still struggles to ask for things. Steve has to keep convincing him that he needs to eat and drink and that he is a human being, and it's okay to want. But Bucky doesn't feel like a human being. He hears Sam telling Steve that when Bucky chooses a DVD to watch, he's making progress. He's making a choice, deciding that he wants something without someone else telling him it's okay. 

They keep watching The Adventures of Robin Hood until Bucky knows Steve is getting bored of it. "Really? Again, Buck?" He says with a laugh, taking it out of the case. 

"I like it. I remember the theatre and drinking afterwards."

Steve keeps smiling. "We got pretty drunk, I think."

Bucky nods. It was crowded and loud in that bar, and Bucky was keeping one eye on Steve all night, making sure he didn't drink too much and get ill, or go out for fresh air and get beaten up, or just keel over and die because Bucky remembers that being a legitimate worry because of how often Steve got sick. 

"You were so small," Bucky says. "I just worried about you all of the time, I was so scared that you'd get hurt and I wouldn't be there for you."

Steve sits back down next to Bucky. "Yeah, I know. But I don't need looking after anymore."

"I do. I need - " Bucky looks up at Steve, who's smile is starting to falter as he stares at Bucky. "I need you, I need to remember all of you and us."

"You're getting there, Buck. I don't think it will happen quickly, but you're definitely making progress."

"Progress," Bucky repeats. He swallows and looks back at the television, where the menu screen song is playing over and over, because Steve hasn't pressed play yet. 

He isn't sure if he's really moving forward at all. He still feels a tense ache in his stomach when he asks for something or expresses an opinion. He wakes up in the middle of the night and he can hardly breathe. Steve must feel like how Bucky used to feel when Steve had an asthma attack, completely helpless. 

**

"Bad dream?" Steve asks,walking into the kitchen, where Bucky is thinking about getting himself some water, hoping it will help the ache in his head to subside. 

"I was in the chair," Bucky says quietly. "They wanted to wipe you and I - there's too much in my head." Bucky watches Steve getting two glasses and filling them with tap water and he feels relieved that Steve could tell what he wanted. 

"I hate them so much," Steve mutters. 

"I think sometimes the quiet wouldn't be so bad."

Steve shakes his head, his eyes looking sad. He takes a mouthful of his water and Bucky copies him. "It would be though, because you need those memories, Bucky. I know some of it hurts, and this must be so frustrating for you, but the noise in your head means your alive and your human, and wiping that away - you don't deserve that. You are not a computer, you're my best friend." Steve's eyes are glistening like he might cry again. 

Bucky cried on the chair once, he remembered it the other night but it might have been a dream. He had been hit so hard that he was shocked out of whatever it was that made him sad to start with. "I don't want to forget you," Bucky says now. 

"You won't. Not now." He sounds so sure of himself, so certain that Bucky isn't going to wake up tomorrow with a blank slate in his mind and no idea where he is. Bucky would love to have that faith. 

Steve holds his hand out and then pauses and lets it drop. He keeps doing that recently, like he desperately wants to touch Bucky, feel him solid, real, alive under his fingertips, but he doesn't want to make Bucky uncomfortable. Bucky takes a step forward and holds out his right hand so Steve can gently press their palms together, and Bucky sighs, the sound shaky. He steps forward again and moves to rest his forehead against Steve's shoulder, listening as Steve lets out a similar noise. 

They stand like that for a very long time. Bucky listens to Steve's heart and counts each beat. 

**

There are bad days. There are days, usually when Bucky hasn't slept for a few nights in a row, where the memories get muddled and he refuses to leave his room in case he hurts someone. Days when he feels more Winter Soldier than Bucky Barnes. He thinks Steve and Sam must be the most patient people in the world, because sometimes Steve will sit on the other side of Bucky's door and talk to him for hours. Sam will make food and leave it outside, and he'll keep telling Bucky that it's okay to feel however he's feeling. 

"I trust you, Bucky," Steve says through the door. "I know you won't hurt me."

"You don't know that. I don't even know that."

"Bucky, you'd have killed me on the helicarrier if you wanted to. You didn't, you saved my life instead."

Bucky wonders if he'll ever feel completely human again. If one day he'll stop waking up with his fists clenched and his jaw aching from grinding his teeth all night. Maybe that is human though. Steve did say that the noise in Bucky's head makes him human. If it was silent, if all he was doing was waking up, completing a mission, wiping it away, going to sleep, then he'd just be a robot again. A tin man. 

Bucky puts his hand over his chest and feels the too fast, too loud pump of his heart, pushing blood into his veins, keeping him alive. 

 

Sam tells Bucky that expressing emotion isn't a bad thing, that everyone has bad days. He tells Bucky he had days after his friend died when he couldn't even get out of bed because he felt so sad. 

"That's human," Sam says. "We sometimes cope with bad, traumatic things in unhealthy ways. It's okay to be angry, as long as you don't hurt yourself."

So Bucky starts going down to the gym when Steve and Sam are both out, and he beats Steve's punching bag until he can breathe easily again. He's there on the bad days, completing missions, and he's there on the better days, beating the people who wiped Steve from his memory until they can't remember who they are either. 

Steve finds him there one evening and stands in the doorway watching for a moment. "You all right?" he asks when Bucky stops to take a breath.

"All right?" Bucky asks.

"Yeah. Are you feeling okay?"

Bucky thinks for a moment, looking down at his clenched metal hand. "No," he says slowly. "But I'm not sure if I ever am."

Steve sighs and steps further into the room. "I heard you shouting last night in your sleep. Do you wanna talk?"

Bucky shakes his head. He can't remember what he was dreaming about, but he doesn't want to see Steve's face falling again. He keeps upsetting him. He focuses on making his expression neutral, blank, but then that still seems to upset Steve. 

"Wanna watch a film then?" Steve offers. 

"Okay."

Bucky remembers smaller Steve, the one who made Bucky wants to wrap his arms around him at all times in case someone tried to break him, stepping out of another fight with blood pouring from his nose and a stupid grin on his face. "You punk," Bucky had said, trying not to smile back, trying to act stern because he was angry at Steve. 

"He was no match for me," Steve said. 

"He was about two hundred pounds heavier than you."

"Aw, Buck, don't be mad." Steve looked up, pinching the bridge of his nose and Bucky sighed, pulling a white handkerchief out of his breast pocket and passing it to him. 

"I'm not mad.I just don't get why you can't run away for once. Stop getting your pretty face busted up just to prove a point."

Steve smiled and shook his head. "Can't run, Bucky, I'd never stop." He paused and looked at Bucky properly. "Did you just call me pretty?"

"Shut up." Bucky sighed and let himself smile properly. "What am I going to do with you, Rodgers?" Steve shrugged, holding out the now blood red handkerchief and making Bucky wrinkle his nose. "You can keep that," Bucky said.

"I'll wash it and get it back to you," Steve said.

"No really, I can cope without it."

Steve looked down at it, realising he had nowhere to put it and Bucky couldn't help but laugh at the look on his face. 

When he smiles at the memory, Steve turns around and sees him. "What?" he asks. 

"You're such a punk," Bucky mutters and Steve's smile grows. 

"You're a jerk," he throws back quickly and Bucky remembers the future expo, flying cars and saluting Steve before he turned to leave. 

**

They fall asleep on the couch together two hours later. When Bucky wakes up with a gasp half way through the night he nearly kicks Steve in the face but Steve just props himself up on his elbows. "You okay, Buck?" he asks. 

"Yeah," Bucky says."I - I can't remember what happened that time."  
Steve moves, shuffling himself closer to Bucky, watching him carefully to see if Bucky looks like he's not okay about it. The couch is big enough for both of them to lie next to each other. "I'm here," Steve says quietly.

"Don't leave." He says it before he's thought much about it. 

Steve shakes his head firmly, turning onto his side to face Bucky. He reaches out to find Bucky's hand and Bucky lets him take it. "I'm not going anywhere."

Bucky leans forward and presses his nose to Steve's neck, breathing in and Steve lays a hand over Bucky's waist, pulling him closer, holding onto him like he's someone real who deserves to be held and loved and cared for. Bucky focuses on Steve's touch drawing circles on the small of his back. 

Bucky thinks there's a possibility that he might end up being okay after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Nutella was introduced to the American market in 1964 when Steve was frozen. I head canon that Natasha put it on Steve's list 
> 
> In the original Oz books, it's explained that the Tin Man was a human and the Wicked Witch enchanted his axe so he chopped his limbs off and replaced his limbs with prosthetic tin limbs until all that was left of him was tin. Bucky read the books as a kid and that's why the Tin Man keeps standing out to him (I know sorry I'm awful)
> 
> Thanks for reading!!! This was meant to be short but then it wasn't very short in the end oopsie looks like I got my muse back or something. A very painful Bucky shaped muse. Come talk to me about it on my tumblr definitelythor.tumblr.com. Feedback is always appreciated, especially as it's my first attempt writing these two!


End file.
